My late father used to teach us, his children, a lesson that in life there is nothing free. He must have wanted to teach us to work hard to get what are valuable in life. I thank him for the lesson among many others for it formed my life as such. Now I am about my dad’s age when I began appreciating the lesson. I still appreciate the point of it, however, I found it is not true; it should not be. It is simply because there are many things which are pricelessly valuable that nobody can pay, such as, the air, the sunlight, and parents’ love. If they were not free, nobody would have survived.

We think we are paying all the things we use for our life. But for many things, we are paying just a little bit of the price, material or nonmaterial, to get the condition to use them. Parents have to “endure” ten months to get the blessing the baby brings; the baby, too, to live as a person. The endurance is not price for the blessings but the condition. We pay some money to use a piece of land. But no one can pay the whole astronomical and geological system that is necessary for it to be as it is. We just pay for the access to the land, the condition to use it for a while.

What about our life? Could we pay our soul, body, and talents? No, they are simply too valuable for us to pay. For us to have them, they must be free. Otherwise, simply we cannot be. Thankfully, they are free, that is, the Creator and Sustainer charges us nothing for our life. Is it true? Yes, for no one pays for his or her life to God. But the best thing that is free is not yet come to us–even eternal life in heaven will be free to whomever will have appreciated him with all heart and mind as the Creator and Sustainer of his/her life as he is. In fact, therefore, in such one’s life everything truly invaluable is free. My late father must have realized this truth as he received his mansion yonder free of charge.